Ghulam Nabi Azad (76) and I have been friends for many years, and for a while were also in the Rajya Sabha together, where he was the Leader of the Opposition (LoP). Recently, he invited my wife and I to come for tea to see his garden in full glory in the brief Delhi spring.

The garden was, indeed, a riot of colours that left the viewer mesmerised. Clearly, it was one of the great joys of his life, a labour of love. Salvias, pansies, candytufts, hollyhocks, antirrhinum, calendulas, petunias, roses, dahlias — any flower you can think of — could be seen in rhapsodical abundance. Photography being another of his hobbies, he took dozens of photographs of us to best capture the garden’s beauty.

Gardening is not a new passion for this political veteran. In the 1990s, when a leading newspaper asked him what he would have done if had not become a politician, he answered without a moment’s hesitation: a mali (gardener). What is amazing is that he pursued this enduring romance with nature throughout his exceptionally........

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